Healthcare organization leaders are expressing some initial skepticism about the merger of athenahealth with Virence Health Technologies, as a result of Veritas Capital and Elliott Management’s recent acquisition of athenahealth.

Current customers of the two vendors say they are in “wait and see” mode following the merger of the two companies, however, the majority of non-customers say they do not plan to purchase health IT technology from the combined company, according to a new survey from Reaction Data, a market research firm focused on the healthcare and life sciences industries.

The Reaction Data survey gauges how patient care organization leaders are reacting to the acquisition of athenahealth by Veritas Capital and Elliott Management, and the subsequent merger with Virence/GE Healthcare. While mergers and acquisitions in healthcare are becoming the new normal, the merger of Virence/GE Healthcare and athenahealth is unique, the report states.

In July, Veritas Capital acquired GE Healthcare’s revenue cycle, ambulatory care, and workforce management product lines, and then several months later rebranded it as Virence Health Technologies. On November 12, private equity firm Veritas Capital and hedge fund Elliott Management announced the acquisition of athenahealth, the Watertown, Massachusetts-based electronic health record (EHR) and practice management vendor, for $5.7 billion,

Following the deal’s closing, Veritas and Evergreen Coast Capital, a subsidiary of Elliott Management, expect to combine athenahealth with Virence Health. The combined business is expected to be a leading, privately-held healthcare information technology company with an extensive national provider network of customers and world-class products and solutions to help them thrive in an increasingly complex environment, the companies said in a press release.

The deal concludes a six-month acquisition process and a tumultuous period for athenahealth and its leadership. Elliott Management, the sometimes-activist fund run by billionaire Paul Singer, has put pressure on athenahealth leadership to take the company private or explore a sale since the hedge fund acquired a 9-percent stake in the company in 2017.

For the survey, Reaction Data collected feedback from patient care organization leaders about how aware the market is about the M&A event and an analysis on how likely the newly combined company will attract, or repel, new business.

While Veritas acquired several important product lines from GE Healthcare six months ago, less than half of respondents (44 percent) were aware of that M&A event. Conversely, the majority of respondents (60 percent) are aware that Veritas and Elliott Management are acquiring athenahealth and plan to merge it with Virence (GE Healthcare).

Looking at overall impact, 45 percent of respondents are neutral on the impact of the merger, while 26 percent expressed a positive opinion and 29 percent have a negative opinion on the merger. Half of respondents who are current customers (51 percent) say they are in “wait and see” mode when it comes to sticking around for the long haul, with the remaining respondents are equally split between leaving (25 percent) and staying (24 percent).

“Reassuring the customer base that integration pains will be minimized and that investment and support will continue will be key priorities for the new ownership team,” the report says.

The rest of the market (non-customers) is another story. As of right now, the majority (57 percent) state they are unlikely to consider Virence or athenahealth for future purchases. Thirty percent of non-customers are in “wait and see” mode.

“While, at present, this certainly isn't an optimistic result, if the new owners execute the integration at a high level, word will quickly get out that the new combined entity truly is greater than its individual parts and the pendulum will swing back in its favor,” the report says.

The report authors also note that skepticism among healthcare organizations is expected among healthcare M&A deals. “Enough of these events in healthcare have gone south that it's perfectly reasonable for customers, and the market alike, to be professionally skeptical about its future. However, it should be noted, that these are two sizable companies brought together by two world-class private equity firms so it is entirely possible that this new company will emerge as a truly formidable competitor to industry titans Cerner and Epic,” the report authors wrote.

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Healthcare providers continue to focus on technology to spearhead revenue cycle improvements, but remain challenged with optimizing electronic health record (EHR) functionality, according to new research from consulting firm Navigant and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).

The survey of 107 hospital and health system chief financial officers and revenue cycle executives, released this week, found that 68 percent of respondents said their revenue cycle technology budgets will increase over the next year, down from 74 percent last year.

Results also showed that, compared to last year: 39 percent fewer executives project a budget increase of 5 percent or more; and 53 percent more executives predict no change to their budgets.

However, this slowing of IT spending does not mean providers are satisfied with their current EHR functionality, researchers noted. Fifty-six percent of executives said their organizations can’t keep up with EHR upgrades or underuse available EHR functions, up from 51 percent last year.

Further, 56 percent of executives suggested EHR adoption challenges have been equal to or outweighed benefits specific to their organization’s revenue cycle performance. Both hospital-based executives and those from smaller hospitals cited more challenges than benefits, compared to health system and larger hospital executives. This is likely due to greater capacity and scale in health system and larger hospital IT departments, researchers concluded.

“Hospitals and health systems have invested a significant amount of time and money into their EHRs, but the technology’s complexity is preventing them from realizing an immediate return on their investments,” Timothy Kinney, managing director at Navigant, said in a statement accompanying the survey. “When optimized correctly, a good portion of the ROI can come from EHR-related revenue cycle process improvements.”

When asked which revenue cycle capability their organization is most focused on for improvement over the next year, most executives (76 percent) once again selected technology-related capabilities. Revenue integrity continues to be the top area of focus among them, cited by 24 percent of executives who noted such revenue integrity program benefits as reduced compliance risks, and increased revenue capture and net collection.

The survey results also showed that, compared to last year, EHR optimization as an improvement priority rose from 15 percent to 21 percent, while physician documentation fell from 18 percent to 12 percent.

What’s more, even though providers do appear to be better prepared to address consumer self-pay, the area continues to be an issue, the research revealed. Eighty-one percent of executives said they believe the increase in consumer responsibility for costs will continue to affect their organizations, down from 92 percent last year. Among them, 22 percent think that impact will be significant, compared to 40 percent last year. Executives from health systems and larger hospitals believe their organizations will be more heavily impacted by consumer self-pay.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will require the use of Clinical Quality Language (CQL) for electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) reporting in 2019. But what is CQL? And how can health enterprises actually put it to work? CQL, an HL7 standard, is a new computable expression language designed specifically for healthcare, bringing together the worlds of clinical quality measures and clinical decision support (CDS).

In this webinar we will review the origins of CQL, the value of the language in eCQMs, electronic care pathways (ePathways) and CDS, and how health enterprises can easily get started with CQL by leveraging the benefits of the cloud.

Learn how leaders at the UC San Diego Health System are solving many of the problems that plague so many integrated healthcare organizations while they are trying to fill in medical record gaps from the vast number of providers enterprise-wide to improve care and reduce billing errors.

In this latest Healthcare Informatics webinar, Cassi Birnbaum, system-wide senior director of health information management and revenue integrity at UCSD Health, discusses core interoperability challenges, including how her team has been able to prepare its providers to avoid having unwanted EHR gaps. Birnbaum will discuss components of UCSD’s integration efforts to help both payers and providers get access to the critical information they need to improve patient care and documentation.